


The Glass Rose of Arlathan

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Ancient Elves (Dragon Age), Arranged Marriage, Complicated Relationships, Cultural Differences, Elf Culture & Customs, M/M, Magic, Political Alliances, Politics, Power Dynamics, Slow Burn, Solas is Fen'Harel (Dragon Age), Tevinter Culture and Customs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 11:27:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21135950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Whilst Dorian is facing scandal in Minrathous, he receives an invitation of hospitality from the Palaces of Arlathan, the seat of the dreaded monarch over Elvhenan, the Dread Wolf, Fen'Harel.Drunk and foolish, desperate to escape the Imperium he once would have called his loving home, he accepts.





	The Glass Rose of Arlathan

#  Prologue

Beneath the balcony of his majesty, the Dread Wolf Fen’Harel, the city of Arlathan glittered in a hundred hues, oranges and yellows catching the glitter of the morning sun, greens reflecting the crystalline nature of the leaves themselves, deep reds and browns making up the platforms that connected one spire to the next, so far over the forest clearing below as they were.

The sun shone directly through the crystal, all the way down to the forest floor, and far beneath his feet, Solas knew that there were animals wandering one way and the next – strong halla, proud, with their heads high; nugs and rabbits scurrying about the undergrowth; wolves stalking amidst the trees, waiting to pounce upon aught they found there.

“And once more,” Lavellan was saying, holding a stack of papers in his arms and a quill in his hands, “the Council asks—”

“Will they never _cease_ to ask?”

“Solas,” Lavellan said, amused, “they find it… strange, unnatural. A ruler is not meant to stand alone.”

“I am not alone,” Solas murmured, his hands squeezing the railing of the balcony. “I have you, don’t I? I have friends; I have the others upon the council. I have no desire to waste my time upon pageantry and glass roses.”

Behind him, he heard Lavellan sigh softly, and then step forward, toward him. He came to stand beside Solas, looking out over the balcony, not turning to look at Solas himself, and Solas looked at his face, bare of the vallaslin that had once marred it, when first they had met, when Lavellan had still been of the Dalish people, the quickened elves that sought to be apart from those of Elvhenan and that slow, slow life they led.

She was still out there, Solas supposed, wandering outside the realms of Elvhenan, amongst the quickened ones, hearing what names the quickened elves called her. _Asha’Bellanar…_

Now, Lavellan’s face was bare, and his youth exuded from him as starlight from the sky: one could always tell, even amidst elves, which had been born to the People, and which had joined them, had crossed the threshold into the Elvhen Kingdom and allowed themselves to step half into the Fade itself.

“I don’t pretend myself a scholar in such matters,” Lavellan said softly, “but even I feel the ache that ails you, the sorrow that dogs your steps. It curls about your feet like fog, obscures your person. You are _lonely_, Solas. Are you so surprised it should worry the Council, that your emotion should be so unchecked as to follow you like a cloud?”

“It is not unchecked.”

“But it is unchecked _enough_,” Lavellan said, surprisingly stern, for one addressing his elder, his superior, if one were to be caught up in such things. Solas was glad he was not. “Nana would have us go to the matchmakers.”

“No,” Solas said. “I would not marry myself with any of our nobles. There would be too much potential for corruption, I cannot trust—”

“They needn’t be noble.”

“One of the commoners, then? _No_. I could not…” Solas remembered the Evanuris, so long ago as that had been, and yet not so far back as to no longer be a vivid stain upon his memory, wrought in living blood. How easily they had taken of those who looked to them as rulers, as gods, how impossible it was to refuse… “I could not. How might they say no to me? If they wished to?”

“Then your nobility and your pride together decree that you should be alone forever,” Lavellan said dryly. “Is that it?”

“Yes, lethallin,” Solas said, turning to face the other man, and Lavellan smiled at him long-sufferingly, exhaling through his nostrils. “That is it.”

“Shani suggested,” Lavellan said, his voice quieter, “that options might be selected from foreign nobility. Men and women from… Orlais, Ferelden, Rivain, Nevarra, the Anderfels. A connection forged would be valuable, but it would less the distance between Elvhenan and the rest of Thedas. It would humble you. As it stands, we are already lionized, exalted, made too distant from the normal peoples of the world.”

“As we should be,” Solas said.

Lavellan smiled at him. “Solas,” he murmured. “You remember you wanted me to tell you if—”

“Yes,” Solas said, closing his eyes. “I know. I know. I would not become that which the Evanuris were. But— to look out upon the world, at the Templars, the Grey Wardens, the damned _Blight_, and the Imperium—”

“Let’s not start on the Imperium,” Lavellan said diplomatically. “You’re to meet with Hahrens Pavarra and Alt’an on the hour, and we have not the time. Have I your approval, then, to go with Nana to the matchmakers? They would make a shortlist, and we might invite them to come for… Say, six months. To meet you, to see how we live here.”

“That’s scarcely any time at all,” Solas murmured.

“Their lives are short,” Lavellan reminded him, gently. “As mine was, once.”

Solas was tired. Tired in a way he knew what to do with, and he fell forward on his elbows. When Lavellan touched him, his hand gentle on Solas’ shoulder, Solas focused on the feeling of his energy against Solas’ own – so different were they, the elves that had come from apart, and rejoined the Fade. He wished they might all be welcomed back into the fold. This very moment, elves were across Thedas, in alienages or hovels, made into slaves, tortured, and that was to say nothing of the rest – not merely elves, nor humans, but people the world over, their freedom stripped away, and here sat Solas in his golden tower, doing naught but meet with the Council, argue petty points, and Lavellan was right.

It was lonely.

“What would I do without you?” Solas asked, softly.

“Burn down the world, probably,” Lavellan murmured, squeezing his shoulder. “The moon won’t fall from the sky if you let yourself relax, you know. If you make more friends, take a lover. Sleep for more than two hours at a time.”

“Let’s not go mad,” Solas said, and Lavellan laughed. “Fine. Let the matchmakers… No noble would send their son or daughter to the People, over the border of Elvhenan. No one but the dwarves will even cross our borders to trade, except for some of the Dalish.”

“I think you are wrong.”

“You seem to think that often of me.”

“I think it sometimes,” Lavellan agreed. “Your own understanding is warped, of course, by your funny belief that you are never wrong at all.”

“I don’t believe that,” Solas muttered, aware of the indignation in his own voice, and he and Lavellan walked together from his quarters, making their way down the corridor, their backs straight, their hands poised. Lavellan had always been proud, noble, but now, he was… Not ascended. But more at peace, more complete, and Solas only wished all elves might know that peace, or even have the option to refuse it, to cast off the shackles they wore the world over… “Do you think me too prideful?”

“I think you care,” Lavellan murmured. “Whatever your flaws, my friend, it is care that makes your core. What matters the rest?”

“I can never decide if you’re the wisest man I have ever met or a consummate fool, Mahanon.”

“I might say the same of you, Solas,” Lavellan said. “I will inform the matchmakers.”

“Very well,” Solas murmured, feeling dread coil in his chest. “But I have not the time to—”

“Later,” Lavellan said, pushing open the doors before them. “Hahren Pavarra, Hahren Alt’an! How does the day treat you?”

#  Chapter One

“—publicly _disgraced!”_

Dorian was shaking. He was aware of it, in a distant way, wrapped as he was in the blanket one of the slaves had handed him for the sake of his modesty, dragged out from the closet with half his robes torn, and he drew in shuddering breaths, trying to focus on keeping his eyes dry, keeping himself from flinching.

There was still wetness streaked down his thighs, on his stomach, red bites visible on his neck and bruises on his wrists, saliva drying on his skin. His hair was a mess. He didn’t look up at his father’s face, but instead focused on the centre of his chest.

“The humiliation of it,” he hissed, beginning to pace again, “my own son, _debased_ before half the Magisterium – you think a man among them would let you marry their daughter, now? You think anyone in Minrathous would even _consider_ a debauched invert like you, no matter that you stand to inherit my seat in the Magisterium? You disgrace your very _blood!”_

Adanus was Soporati. A Soporatus wouldn’t be allowed to get away with this, fucking a Magister’s son over a table and getting _caught_. And how could they have predicted it?

It was young Felicia Hadrian who had done it, so drunk that she had lost command of the fire ball in her hand, hitting the wall between them and making it burn to ash – and mustn’t it have been a show, to look up to the balcony and see the son of Magister Pavus getting fucked within an inch of his life by some handsome soldier, nearly undressed, _hundreds_ of them, too shocked to laugh, even—

Dorian felt sick.

His stomach rebelled, roiling as an ocean swell within him, and when Father grabbed him by the hair, it caught him by surprise.

He gasped in a breath, staring up at his father’s disgusted face as he gripped Dorian’s hair so tightly it dragged at the scalp, and growled, “You have gone _too far_.”

“How can you—” Dorian gasped in a breath. “How can you possibly say it is _I_ who is debauched when blood magi—”

“Oh, _hush!”_ Father snapped, walking away from him. “Blood magic! You would bring up blood magic at a time like this, as if it should distract from the fact that half the Magisterium just saw you sodomised like a bitch before them! My _son! _Your mother is in hysterics – I don’t know that she’ll ever stop crying.”

“I know the feeling,” Dorian muttered, and when his father’s hand slapped across his face, a backhand that made the skin sting, he let out a noise that was almost a sob, but just bit back quickly enough.

“You disgust me,” Father whispered. “Get out of my sight. We will have to send you elsewhere, find some woman who—”

“I won’t.”

“You _will_!” The power that radiated from him…

Dorian was shaking too hard, too sick to argue. He had been pleasantly drunk, earlier, but now he just felt clammy and unwell, and he wished he could crawl out of his skin and leave it behind him, only _wished_…

He didn’t really recall, later, the step back up to his bedroom. He laid on his side beneath his blankets, shaking, tried his best not to vomit. Adanus… Was he dead, already? Had they slit his throat and made use of the blood in his veins, or thrown him to the dogs somewhere, killed him and…

Dorian had only wanted a distraction. He’d liked the young man’s muscle and the stubble on his cheeks, had never even _thought_ about the danger, he’d been so desperate to be touched, be wanted, and wasn’t that the core of it all? Once more, Dorian’s weakness to temptation had allowed him to falter, and now, _now_, a young man’s life was forfeit as a result.

Perhaps it would be better.

Perhaps, were he to simply submit to it, to marry himself off to some _woman_, to grit his teeth and force himself to—

Dorian vomited into the bowl the slaves always set beside his bed after a night of drinking, his stomach rebelling, and he hated the way the spatter of it echoed in his ears, the acidic stench of bile mixed with rum rising to meet his nose and serving only to make him gag again.

He missed Gereon. He missed Felix. Fucking Blight, fucking Venatori, _fucking_—

He set the bowl down, and rinsed his mouth out with water. Sleeping was fitful, for what seemed like a dozen demons swarmed about him in the Fade.

\--

Attempts were made to keep the young Altus Pavus on house arrest, which Dorian might have masterfully superceded, had he any desire to be out among the people of Minrathous. News of his debasement had travelled quickly, and the scandal was on every pair of lips from here to Par Vollen – no doubt even the Grey Wardens in the Anderfels, and the Templars of Ferelden, had heard that Dorian Pavus was fucked by a Soporatus before half the city, and _liked _it.

Mother did not speak to him, which was a blessing.

Father didn’t, either, which… hurt.

Dorian remembered, vaguely, how it had been, once upon a time. Being a little boy, led by his father’s hand one way and then next, being permitted to sit on his father’s knee in the Magisterium, or being carried here and there. He had been carried a lot, as a child, by his father, or by slaves, he’d… He remembered how large his father had seemed, then, how complete, and how much he’d yearned to be like him. So clever with his magic, with his words, his charms, how much people admired him.

It had started changing, when he was thirteen, fourteen. When he discovered other boys, and alcohol, and began to entertain the idea that perhaps there was a world outside the Tevinter Imperium – all good discoveries, but not with the passion he discovered them with.

Mother and Father loved him, to be sure. They loved… parts of him. They loved the idea of him.

He missed Gereon. Missed Felix. Missed the ease and liberty of his youth, missed the world when once he saw it wrought in gold and pink, when all was easy – when the world had been precisely as it was now, but he had been too naïve to see it.

Days passed.

Dorian read, when he could. Slept, when he could. Ate little. Drank less.

Ached for days he could no longer go back to.

\--

When he overheard his father speaking with Magister Davus, it made his blood cold, ice cold, in his veins. It was weeks after the _incident_, but he overheard them speaking as he moved past his father’s ajar office door in the vestibule, heard the words _blood_, and ritual, and… His knees went weak. He fell partly against the wall, felt the sounds of them speaking wash over him as though they were needles upon his skin, not merely overheard words in his ear, and—

He left, then.

A ritual, for—

How could he…?

Scandal be damned, Dorian got as drunk as he could stand, and then some. Slept on a brothel floor, untouched, drank some more. It was days later that he stumbled home – and how could he call it home? Was this how weak he was? So drawn in that he could call…? – and stormed into his mother’s rooms downstairs.

She wasn’t home.

Likely at some party, or elsewhere again, and he stumbled forward, looking at the letters on her writing desk. Here was a letter to some Orlesian dowager with an excess of marriageable granddaughters, a woman Dorian recalled with more passion than he should like – such _perfume_ as she’d worn, smelling like a Nevarran crypt…

_Dearest Arabelle,_

_Of course I understand that recent scandals might deter you, but our Dorian is to undergo a ritual this very week to cure him forevermore of such perversions. He is handsome, charming, a perfectly enchanting mage, and young Coralie would flourish in Minrathous, I’m certain._

_Imagine, Arabelle, the children of—_

Dorian shoved the letter aside, reaching for a few envelopes, glancing at them. Some of the names he recognised – noble houses of Orlais, Rivain, Nevarra. One old fellow attempting to marry off his niece, Cassandra…

He frowned as he touched one piece of parchment, feeling different to the usual stuff. It didn’t feel like goatskin parchment he liked best, nor like the creamy paper the Orlesians made of tree pulp. It was slightly green, feeling thick to the touch, and he looked at the handwriting on it – neat, blocky.

Addressed to Dorian himself, and not to his mother, but why ought he be surprised at his post being intercepted, at this point?

He cut through the end of the envelope with a scarce thought and a burst of magic, drawing forth the parchment.

_From the desk of His Royal Majesty, the Dread Wolf, Fen’Harel of Elvhenan…_

He blinked at it. Licked his lips. Turned the envelope over, examined the seal, made of a crystalline substance that stuck like glass to the page, far too shiny and far too much like polished gemstone to be mistaken for wax, emblazoned with the face of the elvish _god_, Fen’Harel…

“Cordially invited,” he murmured to himself, scanning over the plate-neat writing, evidently written out by some servant and not by Fen’Harel himself, “… bridge the divide between our disparate nations… intercultural understanding… future engagement…?”

Of course, the proud nation of Elvhenan was not even at _war_ with the Tevinter Imperium – they simply didn’t acknowledge them, wouldn’t trade with them, avoided their missives, their threats, even. Dorian knew that they did the same with the Qunari, no matter the mad faux pas of it all, but then, what assault could Tevinter or Par Vollen mount upon a nation whose very border was a border with the Fade itself?

It was _real_, he supposed. It had to be.

How _could_ it be?

_Dear Altus Pavus,_

_We write to you in the hope that you might grace the Palace of Arlathan with your presence for a visit of no more than six months, that we might acquaint ourselves with your person, and that you might acquaint yourself with ours._

_It is the noble hope of the People of Elvhenan to bridge the divide between our disparate nations, and it is our hope that this might be accomplished via personal interactions between our throne and such men as you, nobles of the nation of Tevinter. _

_We should hope to foster intercultural understanding, and we have heard much of you, Altus Pavus – of your intellect, your charm, and, of course, your beauty. It is known that the Houses of Tevinter grow the most beautiful orchids in all of Thedas, and for all we have heard, you are one of them._

_We would be honoured to greet you with our arms and hearts open, that we might build a friendship between ourselves, and perhaps even a future engagemen., If—_

Dorian stopped reading.

Future engagement.

_His_ Royal Majesty.

Dorian swallowed. It was… done, of course. Not commonly, not ordinarily amidst the nobility, but it was far from unheard of – there were Orlesians who married within gender lines, and there was a young princess of Nevarra who had for herself a bride. He knew little of the elves within the bounds of Elvhenan, shrouded in mystery as they were, but it oughtn’t surprise him that they should be so… liberal.

If it was real.

It was too mad to be real. It was some unkind joke played upon the lush of House Pavus, to be certain, some strange—

_If you find yourself willing to accept our offer of hospitality, pen not a response, but place your thumb against the seal thus, that we might come to meet you_.

He glanced to the seal at the base of the page, the corner. He saw the image of Fen’Harel, the Dread Wolf, something of elvish fairy tales, etched upon the page. They said he was a monster, the Dread Wolf.

Dorian had seen some rather _filthy_ etchings of him in one book and another, more wolf than he was elf, often doing something unspeakable to some elvish woman beneath him, twice her size, driving into her as if… And he was a savage, they said. A monstrous thing, uncivilised, a thing of the woods and the trees, worse even than the Qunari.

It was very nice paper. The ink seemed of a high quality.

Blood magic. A joke, a jape, an unpleasant trick.

Dorian was drunk, and tired, and his head spun. Were he sober, perhaps he might never have done it.

His thumb pressed to the etching of the Dread Wolf, expecting its teeth, but no bite came.

Instead, there was silence, as naught happened at all.

Dorian staggered to his bed, the letter abandoned on the floor, and slept atop his sheets, still dressed, more miserable than ever.

\--

Dorian woke hazily, to a dark room.

“He isn’t waking,” said a female voice, softly lilting in accented Trade. “Is he alright, do you think?”

“He’s drunk,” replied another, sharper voice. “Pavus is an infamous lush.”

“Shani!”

“What? It’s no secret. Pat his face, wake him.”

A hand, scarred in places, the fingernails painted a pretty black, swam into Dorian’s vision, and Dorian whipped to grasp it. His hangover clanged in his head like a peal of bells, but he caught the wrist and whipped it to one side, grasping the dagger at the side of his bed. She gasped as he held her against his chest, one wrist bound, the blade against her throat.

“It isn’t every day a gentleman is woken by blood mages,” he said delicately, looking for the silhouette of the other woman in the room.

“Well, you did _call_ for us,” said the one in his arms. “I really think this is a bit of an overreaction.”

“Let her go,” said the other one, stepping forward, and he saw her in the light, an elf with her chin high, her gaze glinting. She scowled as she looked at him. “She’s done nothing to harm you.”

“Hasn’t she?”

“Altus Pavus,” said the one in his arms, plaintively, “don’t you know who we are? My name is Merrill, and this is Shani – we’ve come to bring you back to Arlathan with us. Don’t you remember putting your thumb on the seal?”

“He was probably too drunk to remember,” Shani muttered, and Dorian frowned, glancing between the two of them. Pointed ears – he saw that. And Shani didn’t wear clothes like Dorian had seen before, not outside of paintings of the elves of Arlathan – vibrantly green clothes that seemed all but alive, with buckles and braces made of the same glassy crystal that had sealed the letter.

He swallowed.

“Is this how the royal retinue welcomes a would-be guest?” he asked. “Kidnapping him in the night?”

“Well, it’s only because we were worried your father mi—”

“Would you rather we come back at dawn?” Shani asked, her voice steel-sharp. “Perhaps we might bring a horse and cart for you, a royal parade?”

“Yes, I’d rather like that.”

“Oh, Shani,” said the girl in Dorian’s arms. “I think that’d be a little bit hard to organise.”

Dorian dropped Merrill, who stepped back from him, turning a gentle smile on him. She had a nice smile, and bright, soulful eyes.

“You don’t have to come with us, if you’ve changed your mind,” she said. “It’s just that… Well, we might have caused a little trouble, downstairs. Your— Magister Pavus, he was getting ready for a ritual, they…” She trailed off, looking a little pallid, but it was anger that thinned her lips, not sickness. She looked furious. “Well. You’d best make your decision quickly, anyway. We can’t stay for much longer.”

“Do you want to come to Arlathan, or not?” Shani asked, looking Dorian in the eye.

“It’s not real,” he said. “It can’t be. The Dread Wolf isn’t exactly known as an international diplomat.”

“He says no,” Shani said. “Come, Merrill, let’s leave.”

“Wait!” Dorian said, stumbling slightly, and Merrill gently caught him by the elbow. “No. I want… No.”

“I think he wants to come, Shani,” Merrill said, smiling slightly. “Did you pack a bag?”

“I always have one packed,” Dorian muttered. “Just in case.”

Shani followed his gaze to the cupboard in the corner, and she opened it up, drawing out the knapsack within – a change of robes, a few bottles of toiletries, spare boots, parchment. Dorian stumbled to his desk, taking up his writing set. He’d fallen asleep with all his jewellery on, but he took up a few things from the drawers, gifts, old things…

“Oh, he looks sad,” he heard Merrill whisper. “Are you sure we should—”

“Not at all,” Dorian said, grasping at his staff. “This is merely a hangover you’re seeing, darling.”

“Merely,” Shani repeated, dryly, and Dorian wondered if this was the best kidnapping he’d ever seen. It had to be. It had to be, a sort of trick played on a gentleman far stupider than he would believe, a—

“Is… Is that a mirror?”

“Yes,” Merrill said. “It’s called an Eluvian. You don’t have to be frightened of it! Just step into it.”

“I can’t see my reflection.”

“It’s not that sort of mirror.” Merrill nudged him forward, gently, and downstairs, Dorian heard a shout, the shattering of glass, felt a pulse of magic. “Go, Altus Pavus, we really should hurry now.”

“But I—”

Shani shoved him hard in the centre of his back, and Dorian stumbled through the glass as though it were made of liquid, landing hard on the other side with Shani stepping in behind him.

Struck dumb, Dorian stared at her, but Shani was already moving past him, Dorian’s knapsack slung over her shoulder.

“Come,” she said. “We don’t have time to dally.”

**Author's Note:**

> For the time being, I'm no longer writing fanfic: I publish original works now. 
> 
> My debut novel, Heart of Stone, is a slice-of-life romance between a vampire and his personal secretary, and I hope it's the first of many. 
> 
> You can check out more about my published work [here](https://johannesevans.tumblr.com/post/629449536272826368/landing-page). I am also on Twitter. 
> 
> Thanks so much for your support and your wonderful feedback on my fanfic! It's been essential in pushing myself to move toward original work.


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